Anna May: A lifetime dedicated to Ploughing

Anna May McHugh, managing director, National Ploughing Association, at the NPA headquarters. Picture: Denis Minihane

The wisdom of the National Ploughing Association (NPA) in appointing Anna May McHugh as its managing director back in 1973 did not come as a surprise because she had already shown her flair as an organiser with innovative vision and decisive action.

She continues to exhibit those admirable traits but never were they more obvious than on a fine autumn day at Grangeford, near Tullow in Carlow, when she addressed a gathering for the launch of the 2004 championships.

Scanning a green-field site, bathed in sunshine, she was able to pinpoint with incredible detail and without reference to maps or notes where the trade stands, livestock tunnels, ploughing plots and other structures would be located.

President Michael D Higgins with Anna May McHugh, managing director, National Ploughing Association, on the opening day of the 2012 National Ploughing Championships at Heathpark, New Ross. Picture: Denis Minihane

Her grasp of all aspects of the event was remarkable and showed without doubt that she was the power behind the ploughing championships, elevating it to a national institution that embraces urban as well as rural lifestyles.

She has walked with presidents and taoisigh, chatted with diplomats and prelates, negotiated with exhibitors and site owners and still has time to have a motherly word with visitors.

Always loyal to ploughing competitors and farmers who provide land for the championship, one of the life lessons she outlined in her 2017 book Anna May McHugh – Queen of the Ploughing was “never forget where you came from and the people who helped you get where you are.” The national ploughing championships were much smaller back in 1952 when 17-year-old Anna May Brennan, who had just finished a commercial course, began working as secretary to J. J. Bergin, the NPA managing director. Three years later she became the company secretary.

A native of Ballylinan, County Laois, she was the fifth of eight children. She became a talented camogie player with Ballylinan and Laois, and with Leinster, with whom she won five inter-provincial titles.

Her other big interests as a young woman were clothes, and in later years she introduced fashion shows to the ploughing championships, where they became some of the most popular events on the daily programme.

However, her flair for fashion didn’t work out as planned when she went to her first national championships at Cahir in 1954. J. J. Bergin advised that boots would be the practical footwear, but she wore heels instead. They are still buried somewhere in Tipperary.

Anna May’s face lights up when she talks of the land and the place it has in the psyche of the Irish people and the contribution that competitive ploughing has made to improving tillage farming over the years.

She came from a farming family and her late husband, John McHugh, was also a mixed farmer from near Athy. ‘I always liked farming,’ she once said. ‘It is not that easy a way of life, but I could not see myself having any other lifestyle.’ Despite her busy life, Anna May remains rooted to her rural background, the values that shaped her upbringing and the importance of taking time out to unwind.

That was reflected in one interview when she remarked: ‘When I look out my front door, I see a nice green lawn with flowers and trees. I like relaxing there and during the summer months I will be out there until ten or eleven at night weeding.’ Anna May, who became the first woman on the board of the World Ploughing Organisation in 1997, has been involved in the staging of the World Contest on each of the five occasions it has been held in the Republic.

Anna May McHugh, managing director of the National Ploughing Association, presented with the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year Award 2013 by Caroline Sleiman of Veuve Clicquot. Photo: Anthony Woods

As society changed at a dramatic pace, the NPA had to reflect these developments. Anna May McHugh possessed the leadership skills, vision, and energy required to transform the championships.

She succeeded the late Sean O’Farrell, a former Kilkenny hurler, as managing director, when horses were being replaced by tractors for work on the land. She knew that the event needed a broader public appeal.

Anna May later disclosed that she forgot how to laugh and relax for a full year after being appointed. But then she settled into her leadership, bringing her own style to what had been a male-dominated organisation.

As part of her aim to develop a more diverse programme, sheep dog trials were introduced at Watergrasshill, Co. Cork, in 1974. These were followed in Kilkenny the following year with the provision of more space for machinery demonstrations.

Displays of vintage tractors and other farm machinery, old style threshing, sheaf-tossing and bale-collection competitions were added. Shopping and business arcades became a feature in 1985. Fashion shows were held in 1981 and a livestock section introduced in 1987.

As the trade exhibits increased, so did the crowds, entertainers and politicians. Arts and crafts were showcased. Government departments, semi-state bodies, sporting organisations, the universities, churches, farm-machinery and other agri-business companies exhibited.

Even the Nissan Classic cycle race passed through the Oak Park site in Carlow in 1990 on its way from Dublin to Waterford with Tour de France winners Greg LeMond and Laurent Fignon and Irish legend Sean Kelly from Carrick-on-Suir among the competitors.

It was, intentional or otherwise, a nice tribute to J. J. Bergin, the NPA co-founder, who was known to build his own racing bicycles, one of which weighed as little as 17½ lb. He often cycled 30 miles to compete and win at various sports.

Celebrity chefs, marquees for debate, entertainers and arenas for other tests followed as Anna May and her team enveloped the event with a range of spectator interest activities to an extent that the founders could never have envisioned.

Anna May McHugh discussing traffic arrangements with Garda Tom O'Flaherty ahead of the 2002 National Ploughing Championships at Ballacolla, Co Laois. Picture: Maurice O'Mahony

A woman with a great talent for delegating duties, she always insists “The Ploughing” is not a one-person show.

“You have to have a good group of people with you,” she once said, “and when you ask them to do something they will volunteer.

It is all about involving people and making them feel part of the whole event and that way if it’s a success, it’s their success no matter how small their job.” The National University of Ireland awarded her an honorary doctorate in 2014 in recognition of her exceptional abilities and for her selfless work in promoting Irish agriculture through the ploughing in Ireland and abroad.

A citation read out at the conferring suggested that her enthusiasm, her ability to manage, and her skills in bringing people along with her were some of the reasons for her success. “She keeps her ear to the ground, is very pleasant, a tough bargainer – yet never reneges on her word.” In 2015, the French Ambassador to Ireland Jean-Pierre Thébault presented her on behalf of his Government with the Ordre du Mérite Agricole for her services to agriculture.

The lead editorial in the Irish Examiner the following day noted that Anna May had forged, with the help of daughter Anna Marie in recent years, a unique phenomenon in Irish life.

Anna May McHugh, NPA managing director. Picture: Alf Harvey

It described the achievement as “a multi-million - euro enterprise that brings tens of thousands of rural and urban dwellers, entrepreneurs, political movers, shakers and headline grabbers together in one spot over three days in an alluring mix of business and pleasure.” On being conferred with another honorary degree by Harper Adams University in England in 2019, Anna May told graduates to be positive and never to doubt their own ability.

“Whatever direction you go in, convince yourself that you are able to do it ...that’s what I did when I took over the position of secretary of our Irish ploughing association. I said I will keep going, I’ll keep adding new attractions and I did. And later I became the managing director.” A woman of strong religious faith and devout practice, Anna May will mark 70 years of remarkable service to a rural way of life when the national ploughing championships and the World Contest take place in her native Laois next week - and she will be rightly saluted as the real “Queen of the Plough.”